Final Project Reflection

The literature that I chose to read about for my final project was African American literature. There were a few reasons for this. First of all, next year I will be doing my student teaching in the Chicago Public Schools and will be teaching predominantly African American students. For this reason, I wanted to read a few more books by insider authors to have more experience with this group of underrepresented authors. For my future students, it will be important to involve this literature into their lives, and I need to have more of a foundation besides reading Bronx Masquerade in class.

The second reason I chose these books was because they were all a part of my personal library. I had bought or received these books for various reasons over the past few years. I bought Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred Taylor and The Watsons go to Birmingham-1965 by Christopher Paul Curtis because I know that they are renoun books not only within African American literature, but in all aspects of literature. Roll of Thunder reveived the Newbery award, while Watsons won the Newbery Honor, which are the highest awards in children’s literature. The third book was given to me by a fellow teacher who teaches in the Detroit Public School system. I had heard of the author Jacqueline Woodson before, but never heard of the title Miracle’s Boys. Since I have enjoyed other books of hers, I wanted to read this book. All three of these books were also awarded with the Coretta Scott King Award.

Lastly, the main reason why I chose these three chapter books was because they are all set in different time periods and different settings. I wanted to look at the African American experience throughout from different decades to see how the stories changed, and how perspectives changed. Roll of Thunder is set in the 1930’s in Mississippi, Watsons takes place in 1963 in Flint, Michigan as well as Alabama, and Miracle’s takes place in New York City in the 1990’s.

One thing that was very apparent in this book was the different perspectives. There was the African American perspective, and outlooks on their oppression; and on the other hand there were glimpses of the white perspective as well. Even though it is told from the African American perspective, it shows their thinking and the way that they acted towards people of another race. Also, Roll of Thunder and Watsons seemed very real to me. They are both based on true stories, which makes them come alive to me more than they would otherwise. Besides oppression, the other aspect that jumped clearly out at me was typical stereotyping. In Miracle’s Boys one of the brothers was sent off to a teenage correctional facility, while the older brother was the primary caregiver of the family and worked so hard for barely anything. These are stereotypes and generalizations that we see often within this culture. In Watsons go to Birmingham- 1963 we see the stereotype of Byron who is the rebellious teen who gets in all sorts of trouble, and gets sent down to his grandmothers. And finally in Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, we see the stereotypes of white southerners still angry about the Civil War and before the Civil Rights Movement. All three novels had different themes, but were also similar in certain ways. I think that all three overall are good representations of African American Literature, and would teach any of them in my future classroom.